We are connected

Today I Zoom called a woman at

The Flagstaff Insight Meditation Center

To introduce myself because I’ve decided

To become a member of the center.

“As you may know,” she told me,

“We’ve had a recent death in

Our community.”

“I have not heard. I don’t actually live in Flagstaff.”

“It was national news,” she tells me.

“It was a terrible kayaking accident”

And then I knew. I knew.

“In Puerto Peñasco, Mexico,” I said.

The woman nodded, “that was her.”

Dwayne and I had seen the news,

Just days after leaving the same beach

Where this little family—Mother, father, teen

Went out together.

Only the teen returned, 

Ushered toward shore by her father

Before he paddled back out to get his wife

But they never returned.

I teared up when I read the news, a sort of kinship

For the family was lost in the very place we had just left.

And now I learn that the wife was a member

Of the community I am about to join.

I explained that I had been there.

The very place.

“Their daughter is fourteen,” The woman told me.

“She has been practicing ballet for many years

She had gotten a small role in the Nutcracker. 

Our community is going to watch her

Because her parents cannot.”

I tear up, deeply touched by the

Layers and layers of connections, like waves

Bringing us together and apart and back again.